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Southmead - Is it getting better?

2. Southmead - History & Context

The first stage of the building of Southmead commenced in 1931, when 1,500 houses were built by the Bristol Corporation partly to take families cleared from the slums of central Bristol and partly to address the housing shortage of the time. A further 1,100 house were built after the second world war. Ever since then Southmead has been referred to in terms of the "pre-war" estate and the "post-war" estate, with the former to the south and the latter to the north of Greystoke Avenue. (The division is shown on the map above as the straight dotted line running south west to north east through the centre of the map. The thick black line indicates the Southmead Ward boundary.)

Greystoke Avenue is the main axis and is the location of most of the public and retail services for both parts of the estate. The "pre-war" estate has never been able to shake off its reputation as the "worst" part of Southmead and, as is so often the case, this has been self-fulfilling. The "post-war" development is visibly in a better condition and this is also reflected in fewer social and crime problems.

The Bristol Social Project, which ran on the estate from 1953 to 1958 engaged in counselling, group work and community development on the estate and bequeathed a Community Centre and Adventure Playground, both of them still functioning. However Southmead’s fortunes did not improve significantly over the next 30 years and, by the end of the 1980s, social conditions had deteriorated to such an extent, that major disturbances were occurring in the streets of the old estate and Southmead was front page news in the local press and its problems were featured both in the tabloids (eg: the Sun) and the broadsheets (eg: the Independent):

In 1990 Southmead became one of the priorities for the newly established Bristol Safer Cities Project – a Home Office programme with funding and a multi-agency philosophy for crime prevention. A report on Southmead commissioned by Safer Cities and Bristol City Council underpinned the development of a number of initiatives including: SCRIPT – a multi-agency local group, including residents which aimed to strategically co-ordinate crime prevention in Southmead, SPLASH – a summer play programme supported by the police, aimed at diverting youngsters from trouble, a local mediation scheme and the Southmead Family Project – a scheme led by Social Services but involving the police and other agencies, that worked in a holistic way with vulnerable and "at-risk" families.

It appears that these and other interventions had some impact during the early 90s, as overt disturbances became less evident and some crimes, such as burglary over the summer months, reduced. However, by the mid 90s, heroin dealing and use were emerging as a new social problem that began to have a huge negative effect on the pre-war estate. In one particular street a fortified council house was operating an apparently unassailable drug dealing operation. Even worse, there was emerging evidence that local children were being abused while under the influence of drugs, by one of the dealers.

By 1997 a number of residents had decided they had had enough. Starting with impromptu discussions at the local rugby club and pubs, a spontaneous grass roots organisation "The Voice of Southmead" was established after 500 local people attended a meeting on the estate. Originally the intention was to force out drug dealers by using "we know who you are" leaflets, but in addition it was recognised that young people on the estate needed better alternatives to taking drugs. There was a risk that the "Voice of Southmead" could have become a vigilante group or lynch mob, but through a recognition that there had to be collaboration with the police and the police’s active willingness to work with local people, the organisation worked within the law and made considerable progress, the effects of which are still evident. At the same time the police had finally managed to secure convictions and imprisonment of the two most problematic criminals on the estate.

(See the Voice of Southmead Report, referenced at the end.)

Subsequent to these successful attempts to make inroads into some of Southmead’s social problems, a number of environmental improvements were underway to do something about the run-down state of Southmead’s streets and open spaces. The council had already undertaken a number of street improvements and these were followed by the Trymside Environmental Project, the successful Lydney Road Project in 2000 and the equally successful clean-up in Charfield Road in 2002.

The Lydney Road Project, centred on the clean-up of a particularly degraded street in pre-war Southmead, was particularly interesting in the way that it combined physical improvements with social engagement. A number of unlikely public service agencies became involved as did many of the local adult and young residents. (See Lydney Road Project Report 2000, in references.)